Jan Švankmajer  

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Jan Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934 in Prague) is a Czech surrealist artist and filmmaker. His work spans several media. He is known for his surreal animations such as Dimensions of Dialogue, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam and The Brothers Quay.

Švankmajer's surrealist orientation is an essential element in almost all his films. He draws from sources dear to many surrealists including Edgar Allan Poe, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Lewis Carroll, Horace Walpole, Faust, and Arcimboldo. He has gained a reputation over several decades for his distinctive use of stop-motion technique, and his ability to make surreal, nightmarish and yet somehow funny pictures.

His trademarks include very exaggerated sounds (with one film dedicated to composer Bach Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasy in G minor), often creating a very strange effect in all eating scenes, food is a favorite subject and medium. He often uses very sped-up sequences when people walk and interact. His movies often involve inanimate objects coming alive and being brought to life through stop-motion. Stop-motion features in most of his work, though his feature films also include live action to varying degrees.

Many of his films, like the short film Down to the Cellar, are made from a child's perspective, while at the same time often having a truly disturbing and even aggressive nature.

His best known works are probably the feature films Alice (1988), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Otesánek (2000) and Šílení/Lunacy (2005), a surreal comic horror based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade. Also famous (and much imitated) is the short Dimensions of Dialogue (1982), which shows Arcimboldo-like heads gradually reducing each other to bland copies ("exhaustive discussion"); a clay man and woman who dissolve into one another sexually, then quarrel and reduce themselves to a frenzied, boiling pulp ("passionate discourse"); and two elderly clay heads who extrude various objects on their tongues (toothbrush and toothpaste; shoe and shoelaces, etc.) and use them in every possible combination, sane or otherwise ("factual conversation"). His films have been called "as emotionally haunting as Kafka's stories." (Caryn James, 1994)

He was married to Eva Švankmajerová an internationally known surrealist painter, ceramicist and writer until her death in October of 2005. She collaborated on several of his movies including Faust, Otesánek and Alice.

Influences

Arcimboldo

Arcimboldo is undoubtedly one of the major influences on Svankmajer's work, with overt homages paid in the films A Game With Stones, Historia Naturae (suita) (which "quotes" the original paintings in the background of the credits), The Fall of the House of Usher, Flora (whose subject-matter derives from Arcimboldo's painting Flora[2]) and above all Dimensions of Dialogue, the film whose opening sequence brings three Arcimboldesque heads (made, respectively, from fruit and vegetables, kitchen utensils and artistic materials) to unnerving and unforgettable life. Arcimboldo's influence can also be seen in the collage Vertumnus and Mona Lisa[3], the etching An Arcimboldesque Head and the busts An Arcimboldesque Head and Beethoven Portrayed by Arcimboldo. --text by Michael Brooke [4] [May 2005]

Filmography

Feature-length films

• Alice (Něco z Alenky) (1988)
• Faust (Lekce Faust) (1994)
• Conspirators of Pleasure (Spiklenci slasti) (1996)
• Little Otik (Otesánek) (2000)
• Lunacy (Šílení) (2005)
• Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) (2008)

Short films

• The Last Trick (Poslední trik pana Schwarcewalldea a pana Edgara) (1964)
• A Game with Stones (Hra s kameny) (1965)
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasy in G minor (Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasia G-moll) (1965)
• Punch and Judy, also known as The Coffin Factory and The Lynch House (Rakvičkárna) (1966)
• Et Cetera (1966)
• Historia Naturae, Suita (1967)
• The Garden (Zahrada) (1968)
• The Flat (Byt) (1968)
• Picnic with Weissmann (Picknick mit Weissmann) (1968)
• A Quiet Week in the House (Tichý týden v domě) (1969)
• Don Juan (Don Šajn) (1969)
• The Ossuary (Kostnice) (1970)
• Jabberwocky (Žvahlav aneb šatičky slaměného Huberta) (1971)
• Leonardo's Diary (Leonardův deník) (1972)
• Castle of Otranto (Otrantský zámek) (1979)
• The Fall of the House of Usher (Zánik domu Usherů) (1980)
• Dimensions of Dialogue (Možnosti dialogu) (1982)
• Down to the Cellar (Do pivnice) (1983)
• The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope (Kyvadlo, jáma a naděje) (1983)
• The Male Game, also known as Virile Games (Mužné hry) (1988)
• Another Kind of Love (1988) - music video for Hugh Cornwell
• Meat Love (Zamilované maso) (1988)
• Darkness/Light/Darkness (Tma, světlo, tma) (1989)
• Flora (1989)
• Animated Self-Portraits (1989) - Švankmajer was one of 27 filmmakers who contributed to this portmanteau work
• The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (Konec stalinismu v Čechách) (1990)
• Food (Jídlo) (1992)

List of artworks

• Beethoven by Arcimboldo

See also

• The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer